Sacramento Restaurants, Nightlife and Entertainment

[Surefiresacto]

Originally Posted by econgrad

I didn't write that article!

That makes it even funnier.

[innov8]

I don't understand how the Tower Café made the list?

Sacramento Finally Makes Zagat Survey
Sacramento’s dining scene finally received recognition from Zagat, who in
their 2009 America’s Top Restaurant’s Survey included the metro for the first time.

Among the Top 20 Restaurants listed by Zagat:
Biba Restaurant
Bidwell Street Bistro
Ella
Firehouse Restaurant
Frank Fat’s
Hawks
The Kitchen
Kru
La Bonne Soupe Café
Lemon Grass Restaurant
Mason’s
Mikuni
Mulvaney’s
Osteria Fasulo
Paragary’s
Tower Café
Tuli Bistro
The Waterboy
Zocalo

[sugit]

Per sactown mag month, Crush 29 from Roseville is opening a new location at 16th and K, which I assume is the ground floor of the office building on the SE corner that used to have the horse out front.

From it looks like they will enclose the open first floor to accommodate the new space, which looks pretty sharp from the rough renderings they have posted.

[Cynikal]

Originally Posted by innov8

I don't understand how the Tower Café made the list?

Sacramento Finally Makes Zagat Survey
Sacramento’s dining scene finally received recognition from Zagat, who in
their 2009 America’s Top Restaurant’s Survey included the metro for the first time.

Among the Top 20 Restaurants listed by Zagat:
Biba Restaurant
Bidwell Street Bistro
Ella
Firehouse Restaurant
Frank Fat’s
Hawks
The Kitchen
Kru
La Bonne Soupe Café
Lemon Grass Restaurant
Mason’s
Mikuni
Mulvaney’s
Osteria Fasulo
Paragary’s
Tower Café
Tuli Bistro
The Waterboy
Zocalo

Clearly not in this order.

And to just throw it out there, La Bonne Soupe is amazing. Totally reminds of a place that I went to in Paris almost daily.

[cozmoose]

Not sure if this movie, "The Ugly Truth", is set in Sacramento but the trailer uses the Sac skyline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g5QNpucNMw

[JeffZurn]

^don't think I would ever watch a movie like this (until the wife rented it) but I will just to see how much Sacramento is showed.

Not sure if anybody watches the Mentalist, but I watch that for the same reason

[Majin]

Well I guess Sacramento joins the list of cities movies suposidly take place in but are actually filmed in LA. I'll care more when movies are actually filmed here.

[wburg]

Better than the other way around...East Sacramento was used as the intro/outro shot in American Beauty and was used as the background for 1960s Oakland in Panther, and in the 1920s/30s there was a whole spate of movies set supposedly on the Mississippi River but filmed in Sacramento (we were closer, had a river and riverboats.)

There are also a lot of local movie producers making homegrown movies here, like Monster From Bikini Beach. Lots of local talent in that one!

[Majin]

Originally Posted by wburg

Better than the other way around...East Sacramento was used as the intro/outro shot in American Beauty and was used as the background for 1960s Oakland in Panther, and in the 1920s/30s there was a whole spate of movies set supposedly on the Mississippi River but filmed in Sacramento (we were closer, had a river and riverboats.)

There are also a lot of local movie producers making homegrown movies here, like Monster From Bikini Beach. Lots of local talent in that one!

Interesting, I had no idea (parts of) American Beauty was shot in East Sacramento, I'm going to have to watch that movie again. I forget, where was the movie suppose to have taken place?

Never seen or heard of Panther. What kind of background shot was used, the skyline? Can't imagine that since we pratically had no skyline in the 60's but then again I'm not sure Oakland did either.

[wburg]

Panther was about the Black Panther Party, and part was shot in Sacramento because of the Panthers' protests at the state capitol. I think they also used some shots of J Street to represent parts of Oakland, mostly establishing shots close to the street. They didn't use a skyline shot.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114084/

American Beauty didn't specify a town, it was just supposed to be a generic upper middle-class suburb. Most of the film was shot in Los Angeles, but if you watch the opening credits and final fade-out, it is recognizably East Sacramento (one can spot Sisters of Mercy Hospital in the shot.)

[sugit]

Looks like the Sacramento Comedy Spot is moving from Broadway over to the MARRS building. Great addition..IMO

[Ryan@CU]

From "The Ugly Truth"



From "XXX" with Vin Diesel


American Beauty


Other movies:
"Phenomenon" - a good portion of it was shot in Auburn
"Lucky Numbers" - another Travolta film shot in downtown sac

[Grimnebulin]

Masque is re-opening soon (few weeks) as Sienna. Lighter cuisine and reconfigured bar space.

Also, two groups are looking at the old 55 Degrees space possibly - Ink and/or Taylor's from what I hear. Not sure why anyone would open in that space in this economy unless it's a screaming deal...

[wburg]

From today's Shallit column:

http://www.sacbee.com/shallit/story/2371816.html

Bob Shallit: Owners hope vegan cafe's a natural fit for Sacramento
ShareThis
Buzz up!
By Bob Shallit
[email protected]
Published: Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 2B

Sacramento's about to get its first vegan eatery.

No meat, no dairy, no honey. No animal products of any sort.

Just "delicious, heart-warming food," says Melissa Wilhelm, who's starting the business with husband Khy'em Amri in the former True Love Coffeehouse at 2315 K St.

The couple have been running a wholesale baking business for the past two years, delivering vegan goodies to Whole Foods, Java City and other spots.

But, Wilhelm says, "my dream was always to open a cafe."

The Sugar Plum Vegan Cafe will open in early February. The specialties of the house? Curry dishes, lasagna, potato pancakes – "home-style comfort foods with a little world fusion," says Amri.

Also planned: live music and other entertainment in the dining area and, upstairs, a small retail operation with clothing sales.

All vegan, of course.

Can Sacramento support a pure vegan eatery?

"We hope so," Wilhelm says, laughing. Her husband says business will grow as non-vegans visit and discard negative preconceptions.

His prediction: They'll experience "a revolution of the taste buds."

Monkey business

Speaking of eateries, we now have details about the new business taking over the former Three Monkeys space in downtown Sacramento.

Opening next month is Vivé Cocina Mexicana & Ultra Lounge – an upscale eatery by day that will become a dance spot on weekends, with Top 40 music on Fridays and Latin pop on Saturdays.

"People are going to have a really great time here, whether they're eating, drinking or dancing," says Fili Sainz, a longtime local DJ who's one of three partners in the business.

Gabriel Ochoa will head up the food side of the business and promises upscale cuisine comparable to Zócolo and Centro. Promotions for the venture will be handled by Felipe Olvera.

"There's really good chemistry," Sainz says of the partnership. "Everyone brings something different to the table."

Felipe Olvera is the same person who was getting ready to open a restaurant/nightclub at 21st and O (Antigua Cantina) but it looks like he found a better spot for it downtown--something to brighten up the 700 block of K Street at night. Apparently there is some sort of spa going into the building at 21st and N.

The news about 2315 K is kind of neat too, although I don't think they're the first vegan eatery--there have been quite a few vegetarian restaurants in town over the years (although they usually included cheese) and I think the Vietnamese place on Broadway and a raw-food place near the Co-Op are strictly vegan. Even the True Love was ovo-lacto vegetarian.

[Surefiresacto]

Congrats Temple!

Posted by Blair Anthony Robertson
October 6, 2010

Temple Coffee is adding to its reputation for superior coffee. The Sacramento coffee house and roaster, was recently awarded an astounding score of 97 by www.CoffeeReview.com for its heirloom coffee called Guatemala Hunapu Antigua Bourbon.

Big news? Actually, it's huge. Coffee Review has the most prestigious ratings in the industry and this is the highest score given any coffee in North America in 2010.

The news left Temple's owner, Sean Kohmescher, in disbelief when he first heard. When did it start to sink in? When the shop's website began getting hits from all over the country and Temple practically sold out its inventory of this particular bean to coffee lovers in New York, Virginian, Florida, and elsewhere.

Local coffee aficionados may be out of luck. Kohmescher said the Guatemala Hunapu is pretty much sold out at the Temple Shops on S Street in midtown and 10th Street downtown. But both shops held back enough to have special tastings this Saturday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. You'll get 14 ounces made in a French press for $5.50.

I managed to nab a bag of whole beans online -- $15 for 12 ounces, plus $5.45 for shipping.

Ted Stachura, the assistant editor at Coffee Review, said he knew right away he was tasting something special. Coffee roasters and shops throughout North America routinely send beans to the Oakland-based Coffee Review for an assessment. A rating in the high 80s or low 90s can help sales significantly and bring prestige to a business.

Stachura and Kenneth Davids, the editor and well-known author of books on coffee, were the tasters.

"To me, it had a fruit quality to it that was very distinct and very pronounced, almost a black currant character," Stachura said by telephone. "We definitely both really liked this coffee and we knew it was way up there in the score. It's very unusual to give a coffee a 10 in the flavor category."

Temple has only been roasting its own beans since March. The roaster is Ed Whitman. Wonder what he will do for an encore. Congratulations to everyone involved.

[wburg]

Here's the scoop on the 700 block and its live music venue, from the Business Journal.

I'm a bit leery of some of their assumptions, like a grocery store requiring 5,000 "rooftops" and downtown Sacramento falling short of that. There are 17,000 people within one mile of Downtown Plaza, and another 17,000 in the other half of the central city, and currently 3 supermarkets, including the Safeway on Alhambra. There are also about 100,000 daytime employees, most of whom seem to spend a lot of time and money in the little convenience stores, sundry shops and liquor stores downtown, most of whom would patronize a full-service grocery store. Not to mention that 5000 rooftops in the suburbs adds up to around 1250 acres of quarter-acre suburban houses--or two square miles, equivalent to the western half of Sacramento's central city. Do they think that people in existing central city residential neighborhoods wouldn't patronize a downtown grocery store?

The news about the music venue is pretty exciting, though--and here is the picture someone asked for in another thread.

Developer proposes music venue to anchor K Street’s 700 block
Premium content from Sacramento Business Journal - by Michael Shaw
Date: Thursday, November 4, 2010, 6:30pm PDT
Related:
Retailing & Restaurants, Travel Industry
Enlarge Image
Rendering courtesy of D&S Development

The music venue on the 700 block of K Street will be on the former site of the Men’s Wearhouse.

A music venue for 500 people will anchor the revamped K Street Mall, say developers designing mixed-use projects on the corridor long considered ground zero for the rebirth of downtown Sacramento.

The multi-tiered concert space will sit on the corner of K and 7th streets, alongside local retailers and restaurants with a “Main Street” feel of second-story apartments inside K Street’s historic shops. That’s according to D&S Development, one of the partners negotiating with the city to remake the 700 block and enhance nightlife along the corridor.

The urban renewal can’t come soon enough for Sacramento, which will have invested more than $60 million in remaking two blocks of K Street if projects proposed there are built. While the city is looking to complete these deals, it also is examining the post-recession course for infill and redevelopment.

There has been $617 million invested in downtown over the past five years in 22 projects and all but five were to have been public-private partnerships. The K street projects on the 700 and 800 blocks also will be public-private partnerships that rely on subsidies.

“The project addresses a lot of the concerns about K Street,” said Bay Miry, a principal of D&S Development. “It has significant housing, diverse and predominantly local retail, and removes blight.”

The development team on the 800 block, headed by David S. Taylor Interests Inc., has not revealed more concrete plans than when it was selected to negotiate with the city in July.

At the time, it proposed 120 housing units, including renovation of the Bel-vue Hotel and 20,000 square feet of retail.

Signature projects such as these could be the last of their type for awhile.

In a meeting with the Urban Land Institute last week, Leslie Fritzsche, Sacramento’s downtown development manager, said the city will no longer focus on a few small areas or wait for big projects to arrive. At that same meeting, an executive from a major national firm described how redevelopment will be far more challenging in a post-recession world.

“Those days are over,” said Mike Daly, a senior vice president of development for Forest City Enterprises Inc., speaking of a time when developers fronted the funds for infrastructure improvements on big developments. “You need to get creative to bridge that gap.”

Forest City is a publicly traded real estate firm that has tackled some of the country’s largest projects, including building thousands of housing units at Denver’s decommissioned Stapleton Airport.

Daly said it takes 5,000 rooftops to create sufficient demand for one grocery store. Downtown housing falls far short of that.

Developer Kipp Blewett, part of the team that created The Citizen hotel, noted that if Sacramento had built all the high-rise condominium towers proposed prior to the recession and real estate crash, it still wouldn’t equal 5,000 rooftops.

Blewett, who had pitched a more ambitious concept for K Street, said downtown needs to concentrate on projects that make it a destination, such as The Railyards, a refurbished Downtown Plaza mall, a revamped J-K-L corridor and a new sports and entertainment complex.

“If we wait for housing, we’ll be waiting for the next 20 years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Fritzsche acknowledged the city needs to advance projects already under way, such as “The Warren” — a 117-condominium project with ground-floor retail on 16th Street proposed by Sacramento-based Nehemiah Community Reinvestment Fund and Em Johnson Interest of San Francisco. The project needs to pre-sell units to receive financing.

“I don’t think we do a good job of marketing and promoting,” Fritzsche said. “We don’t focus our attention as effectively as we can.”

On K Street, the D&S and Taylor projects will bring the first new housing to the urban core in years. Development teams expect to complete the deals in the spring and start construction immediately afterward.

After touring the buildings on the 700 block, D&S Development dropped the number of proposed apartments there from 136 to 125 and increased the retail space to about 60,000 square feet.

The team has a nonbinding letter of interest from the owners of the Shady Lady restaurant — Alex Origoni, Jason Boggs and Garret Van Vleck — to operate the 12,500-square-foot music venue proposed for the buildings now occupied by Men’s Wearhouse and Joe Sun. The venue would include a restaurant and bar.

The smaller Shady Lady has a stage for musical acts, and the owners are “plugged into the music scene,” Miry said.

He and his partners have identified users for about 70 percent of the retail space. They have nonbinding letters from local retail operators including De Vere’s Irish Pub, Kru and Red Lotus restaurants, and Tuli Bistro. Miry also plans to bring in a clothing boutique and a bakery/diner concept.

“We have found a significant amount of potential basement retail space where the original elevation of K Street was,” Miry said. “We have also found potential roof-top retail spaces.”

[email protected] | 916-558-7861

[Majin]

Hes right, much more housing is needed downtown.

[Majin]

Also, instead of building condos, there needs to be focus on building more apartment buildings.

[wburg]

There does need to be a lot more housing in the downtown core--eventually, thousands of units. The several hundred units in the two K Street projects are a start. The point is that there are already many people living close to downtown, just not nearly enough in the CBD itself, and between the current population and the transient worker population (five times its size) there is almost certainly enough of a market for a downtown market. Given the way that money is working these days and in the near future, things like residential high-rise towers (rental or for sale) probably aren't going to happen soon, but there are a lot of opportunities to put housing into existing buildings.

In fact, once these projects get built, the most "blighted" spots in the central business district will be the vacant buildings where there are residential towers planned, on the 1000 block of J Street. Of course, the owners of those buildings could decide to fix them up and turn them into residential units--and if K Street's experiment is a success, they just might.

[otnemarcaS]

Can't wait for these venues to open. Will be a good addition to K street. With Social/Cosmo, Parlare Euro Lounge, Citizen's hotel, Pyramid, Ella, Marilyn's on K, that new tequilla/Mexican restaurant opening soon, Crest, Imax and others, that area may fast become core downtown's main entertainment district.

Watch out Midtown ... Downtown rising.

New faces on K Street
by Suzanne Hurt, published on December 16, 2010 at 6:35PM

Three new façades add a bit of “wow” to K Street Mall.

Work is close to wrapping up on San Francisco nightclub owner George Karpaty's new businesses, Dive Bar, District 30 and Pizza Rock. A month away from the expected openings, contractors applied some of the finishing touches to the exteriors Thursday.

The bar, club and restaurant technically occupy one building, owned by Sacramento developer David Taylor and CIM. But the exteriors were rebuilt to look like three distinct, separate spaces – from sleek contemporary to slightly edgy to quaint, Old World charm.

The façades are like book covers, designed to entice by giving just a taste of what's inside, said the project's architectural design manager, Michael Boskovich of RMB Architects in Sacramento.

"This is – in my opinion, as a longtime local, – a big step up, something that's hopefully very contagious and will have legs in Sacramento," he said. "That's one of the things I appreciate about George's group – stepping out and doing this and, of course, including us."

District 30 at 1022 K St. sports a contemporary, minimalist exterior to match the interior of the sleek, elegant over-30 dance club. Three sets of double glass doors were set in a frame of white, metal composite panels. A copper and bronze "District 30" sign sits beneath 20 gray panels that will feature changing collages of illuminated art once the business opens.

"The sign is very subtle. It's not as much attitude or in your face as Pizza Rock," Boskovich said.

Pizza Rock, with its red neon sign and laser-cut metal flames, seems to burst from between its two sister venues. Filigreed flowers, hearts, stars and butterflies – designed to look like tattoo art – soften the sign, inspired by tattoos worn by Pizza Rock co-owner Tony Gemignani's wife. LED backlights will be added to give the flame a shadow.

Gears were bolted onto the tan travertine tile exterior to emulate old earthquake ties used to reinforce buildings. The centerpiece for an outdoor seating area in front is a glass- and mesh wire-enclosed fireplace built into an industrial-looking copper cauldron made to look like it was reclaimed from a junkyard. Inside, the other side of the cauldron holds one of the restaurant's pizza ovens.

"It's meant to add to the ambiance out here," Boskovich said.

Dive Bar at 1016 K St. was given an Old World hotel feel, with a brick façade and copper-penny storefront. Three curtained, "second-story" windows add to the illusion.

Stockton muralist Carlos Lopez painted Dive Bar's sign to mimic old painted ads still found downtown, including next door at 1030 K St., which contains Ambrosia Cafe. Lopez also painted Pizza Rock's ceiling mural resembling Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam" – with the hand of God holding out an electric guitar.

Pizza Rock is expected to open Jan. 14. Dive Bar and District 30 are slated to open Jan. 19. Hours will be 11 a.m. to midnight, Sunday through Tuesday, and 11 a.m. to 3 a.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

The building’s renovation added 15 to 20 feet in height to the exterior. Several one-of-a-kind features were designed to create the three distinct looks.

Boskovich, whose company does a lot of retail restaurant work, said he's eager to see more entrepreneurs use such creative, high-quality exteriors on new businesses.

"I'd like to do more like this in Sacramento," he said. "Sacramento's ready."

Sacramento Press Journal